The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is giving a loan of about three thousand crores to Bangladesh. The organization is providing 250 million USD loan to strengthen the social security system of the country. The amount of money in Bangladeshi currency is 2 thousand 935 crore 50 lakh taka (117.42 taka per dollar).
ADB signed the loan agreement with the Economic Relations Department (ERD) on Monday (June 10). On behalf of the Bangladesh government, ERD Secretary Secretary Md. Shahriar Quader Siddiqui and ADB Country Director Edimon Ginting signed the agreement on their respective behalf.
ADB Country Director Edmond Ginting said the Second Strengthening Social Resilience Program aims to accelerate reforms to increase protection coverage and efficiency, improve financial inclusion of disadvantaged people, and strengthen responses to diverse protection needs. The first phase of this program ended in June 2022.
He said the new program supports the second phase of the government’s National Social Security Strategy action plan to strengthen the protective and preventive capacity of Bangladesh’s social security system. The program will help to improve efficiency in managing social protection programs, increase protection for the most vulnerable, and improve access to social protection through the introduction of contributory protection schemes. This will help reduce the risk of falling into vulnerability, exclusion and further poverty.
The program will integrate two cash-based protection programs for people with disabilities to improve efficiency and effectiveness, the agency said. The program will help integrate climate adaptation measures into social protection to strengthen resilience against climate vulnerability, including identifying those most vulnerable to climate change-related disasters.
ADB’s support will strengthen the protection of vulnerable women and transgenders by increasing the number of beneficiaries under the widow’s allowance program and expanding the coverage of the Livelihood Assistance Program for Transgenders. In addition, Bangladesh Bank is doubling its funding for the Small Enterprise Refinancing Scheme for Women Entrepreneurs, to expand women small business operators’ access to financial services.
Another goal of the program is to strengthen the governance of the garment sector, according to ADB. It also supports the formation of a tripartite committee, which includes workers’ associations on social protection for workers under the Ministry of Labor and Employment, employers’ associations and the country’s social insurance schemes as a key institutional mechanism to help further develop them.
MOS/MIHS
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